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Ben Brode appeared on Value Town earlier this week and was asked a few Hearthstone related questions pertaining to 2015, including his favourite card and the deck that surprised him the most.

First up, he was asked to talk about the card he felt was the most impactful of 2015. He wasn't allowed to say Warsong Commander, so named Grim Patron instead. Regarding Warsong Commander, he mentioned that it "affected the brain space of Hearthstone", a reference to previous comments that it meant certain cards they would have liked to print had been ruled out because of it (for instance, they originally wanted to print Dreadsteed as a neutral, but the combo with Warsong Commander would have been game breaking).

Brode's favourite card of 2015 was Explorer's Hat. He has built a "Hat-rattle" deck that stacks multiple Hats and Deathrattles with Baron Rivendare. When asked which decks surprised him in 2015, he replied that although they were trying to make a secret deck viable, they didn't expect Secret Paladin to be as strong as it turned out. In line with most of the community he mentioned that the design team thought that the downside of having to play subpar secrets with Mysterious Challenger would have kept the deck in check. The other surprise he mentioned was Lock and Load, which they thought would be a regularly played card. While addressing this question he also mentioned that Dreadsteed used to summon two Dreadsteeds with its Deathrattle, but was it was considered too frustrating (for the player, not the opponent) to have a board full of them so rapidly.

Unsurprisingly, his favourite event of the year was BlizzCon. He highlighted his favourite moment of the year being when they announced that the League of Explorers adventure was going to be in six days' time. His biggest challenge was stated as the growing size of the development team, which has gone from 15 members in Beta to 50 currently.

He also mentioned that he had a couple of important moments to do with communication over the course of the year. One of those moments was where he did a video reply to Kripparrian's bad cards video. A mix of both of these videos can be found here. Brode said that the revelation that a video message was a better way of communicating than text was a big one. The other moment was having lunch with Frodan and realising there were misconceptions among the top players and casters as to how Blizzard works. He wants to communicate with these people more as he believes they are authorities on the game more than he is.

After the segment, where Reynad and Savjz also answered the questions, Brode was challenged to build a deck using Dark Bargain, which occupied the second half of the segment.

Diablo’s 20th Anniversary will take place in the beginning of 2017 and it will be celebrated in all other Blizzard games. Let’s take a look at the special Diablo-themed Tavern Brawl planned for Hearthstone.
During the release of the latest Hearthstone patch, a new Diabloesque card back was discovered. According to an article by Hearthpwn, where we found all this information, this card back is tied to an upcoming Tavern Brawl called “[The] Dark Wanderer”.

The chalk board, heroes, hero powers and some cards of minions, spells and secrets of this upcoming Brawl have been datamined and you can find them in the same Hearthpwn article. The two players will take on the roles of the Dark Wanderer and the Cow King, two figures we all recognise from Diablo II. Presumably, the card back will be rewarded after your first victory in the Brawl.
We are expecting this new Tavern Brawl during the first weeks of January 2017 – just like the other Diablo celebrations in Blizzard games (most notably in World of Warcraft).